On the Boundary Between Light and Shadow
by Enthalpy
Summary: In which Gensokyo, a hidden land of illusion and fantasy, is thrust into the harsh reality of a new land Outside. The world will never be the same again.
1. Chapter 1

**On the Boundary Between Light and Shadow**

It was dangerous, she knew, to wander around in a hidden village. Not just because of their distance from the mountain that served as her home – the closest one still took several days' travel to get there, and bandits waiting to prey on unwary travelers were not an uncommon sight – but also because of the people who inhabited it. The hidden villages were filled with ninja, the type of humans most likely to detect her presence, after all, and if she were discovered, the consequences would no doubt be... dire.

Still, there was something which drew her back to the places again and again. Perhaps it was because of the scenery – her home did not have any counterpart for the twisted forests and craggy mountains that surrounded some of the villages she had visited. Perhaps it was the people. Her homeland boasted only a village of middling size, after all, surrounded by scattered farmsteads. Perhaps it was because of the aura of violence and despair that seemed to permeate the villages which she visited. Or perhaps it was so that she could, if only for a short while, leave behind her reputation as a bringer of unfortunate events.

But regardless of the reasons why she was there, Kagiyama Hina sat on top of the four carved stone faces that overlooked the village and gathered misfortune, slowly but steadily accumulating a pile of the small paper boats and dolls that she used to disperse the ill luck that persistently dogged her footsteps. She had entered the village without much fuss early in the morning, claiming to be a civilian visiting the city, and had, after purchasing a large quantity of paper squares, traveled to the vantage point and begun her work. The repetitive motions were calming in their own way. She had long since ingrained the motions into her mind, and she folded the boats effortlessly.

By the early afternoon, she had run out of paper, and she stood and gathered up the small boats, carefully placing them into a basket she had brought along with her, satisfied with her work for the day. After she stowed these away in the room she had rented at one of the travelers' inns that dotted the town, she would go and buy some food before coming back to this vantage point and spend the rest of the day sitting in quiet...

A voice jolted her out of her thoughts. "Hey there!"

She started, very nearly upending the basket onto the grass. A young boy with pale blonde hair waved to her from the far side of the monument. He smiled brightly at her and ran over, moving surprisingly quickly for a child his age. Hina sighed, before smiling back and returning the gesture. It was rare for her to have any human contact, both because of her reputation and the taboos against associating with her, and also because of her own decisions to avoid the company of others. Even though associating with this child for a while shouldn't lead to any lasting consequences, especially since she'd already finished folding the boats for today, she would have preferred if he'd stayed away, if only because she could not ensure that none of her influence would linger around him.

Still, it could be relaxing to have some human company once in a while, if only for the different perspectives the people she met could offer. Besides, this was a child. There wasn't anything she could really _do_ to him, right?

"I haven't seen you around before," the boy said excitedly.

Hina smiled again. The child's happiness was almost infectious, and it was hard to resist being caught up by his cheerfulness. "I doubt you would have," she said quietly. "I don't live in Konoha, and I'll be leaving soon once my business here is done."

The child frowned, scrunching up his face. "If you're not from Konoha," he asked slowly, "then where are you actually from?"

"That," Hina said, poking the kid on the nose, "is a secret." She giggled a bit as the child squawked indignantly. "In any case," Hina said, collecting her things, "I really should be going." She looked down at the village below. "Nice meeting you, kid." She had barely begun walking away when she heard a shout from behind her, and turned to look. The boy was running after her, waving as he followed her down the path she had been taking.

"Wait!" he shouted. Hina stopped and waited. The boy ran up to her and looked up at her, almost pleadingly. "Can I come with you? I won't get in your way, I promise!"

Hina blinked. It was rare that anyone would willingly follow her. She looked at her basket full of dolls, then at the boy, then back at the basket. "All right," she said, grudgingly. "If you really want to, I guess you can follow me." The boy let out a loud cheer, and Hina smiled faintly. It was good to see that at least one person could be happy when in her presence.

* * *

Based on her previous, if limited, experience dealing with young children, Hina half-expected the boy following her to incessantly ask questions about anything and everything she did. It was with a great deal of surprise, then, that she discovered that the boy kept his word to the letter, choosing to trail her at a distance instead of sticking to her side. Still, if the child was intelligent enough to keep his promise to her, she was hardly one to complain.

Her business in the village did not take long to conduct. Most of the things she purchased were items that she purchased were items that she would be hard-pressed to find back at her home: high quality paper, a selection of steel knives, some fine porcelain dolls, and some children's primers and other textbooks that Keine would no doubt be interested in.

As she wandered around the city, visiting the shops which might sell items of interest to her, Hina quickly noticed that the townsfolk seemed to treat her with a sort of quiet sympathy. It wasn't until she dropped off her purchases at the inn, though, that she discovered why. By that time , she had finished shopping, it was already late afternoon, and she could feel herself steadily getting hungrier. Sparing a glance at the child who was still stubbornly following her, she began to look for some sort of food. There were plenty of vendors hawking their wares on Konoha's streets. What to buy, then? Yakitori, perhaps? She looked at the nearest stand, which did, in fact, sell grilled chicken skewers. The last few times she had bought the stuff in the human village, usually from Mokou, it hadn't been bad.

She looked back at the kid who was still stubbornly following her, this time waiting half-concealed behind a trash can, and then walked up to the cart, ordering two portions of yakitori. The young man working the stand nodded at her pleasantly, and soon, the street was filled with the pleasant smell of grilling meat. "So," the man said, as he worked, "what brings you to Konoha?"

"Business," she said quietly, "business and travel. There are some items available here that are both much more difficult to find in smaller cities and much more reasonably priced here. The scenery helps as well, I suppose. Konoha is a beautiful place."

"I figured you weren't from around here," the man said, "considering you haven't noticed the village troublemaker following you around."

"Troublemaker?" Hina asked, with a frown. "I met that boy while I was sightseeing earlier this morning. He's seemed nice enough so far, and I haven't seen any reason to drive him away."

The storekeeper shook his head. "That kid's bad for business," he said dryly. "He's always running around causing some sort of disruption, not to mention the fact that a good deal of the populace seems to dislike him. I'm not surprised, to be honest. He has this habit of causing property damage – nothing major, of course, and usually it's not anything that a fresh coat of paint can't fix, but it's still quite irritating to wake up one day and discover that your storefront has been covered in bright orange paint." The man sighed. "And it doesn't help that the Hokage seems to like him for some reason. It seems like he never really receives any real punishment for any of his antics."

"Is that so?" Hina asked. "What about his parents?"

He shook his head. "I _think_ he's an orphan, but no one knows for sure. The only people who know are the ninja, and they sure as hell aren't telling anyone anything – the last time any of us civilians asked about him, we were told in no uncertain terms to leave the matter alone." The man grimaced a bit before smoothing his face into a calm smile. "But enough about that kid. How long are you staying in Konoha, miss?"

"I'm leaving tomorrow morning," she replied. "It's several days' journey to my home, and I want to put some distance between myself and the city before night falls."

"I see. Well, I hope you enjoy the rest of your stay in Konoha, and I wish you a safe journey." He leaned over towards her, placing two full wooden boxes on the counter. "And be careful. There's rumors that groups of bandits have begun to raid merchant caravans in the area. A lone traveler like you would be a perfect target."

Hina nodded, taking her food. "Thanks for your concern," she said, "but I can take care of myself." She looked back to the street, where the kid was_ still_ standing behind the trash can that he'd hidden himself behind when she first came to the stand. "Well, I suppose I should be going, now. Thanks for the food."

"Thank you for your patronage. Hopefully I'll see you around in the future, miss."

Food in hand, Hina made her way back to her former vantage point overlooking the city. The trip back was uneventful, all things told, and, before long, she had settled back down in the grassy clearing where she had sat making her dolls earlier that morning. Placing the two boxes of food down on the grass, she waved the child over. He bounded over with all of the enthusiasm of a small child before finally skidding to a halt in front of her.

"Sit down," she said, pointing at the second box of food. "That one's yours." The kid sat down almost instantly, before glancing at her, looking confused.

"For me?" he asked. "Really?"

She nodded. "Really. You should hurry up and eat it – it'll get cold soon."

The boy looked at the box, at her, and then back at the box. "Thank you very much for the food!" he said. And with that, he fell upon the proffered food and devoured it. Hina watched, mildly impressed. She'd barely even begun eating by the time that the young child polished off his bento.

"You know," she said, after he'd finished eating, "I never got your name."

"Um!" the boy said. "I'm Uzumaki Naruto! Future ninja of Konoha!"

Hina blinked. "Uzumaki... Naruto," she repeated. It sounded suspiciously similar to the name of someone she had heard mentioned in passing before. There were always rumors floating around of some incident or another that the Hakurei Maiden had solved. Most, of course, were quickly disproven, but there had been one remarkably persistent story regarding a violation of the spellcard rules and an expedition to the deepest reaches of the sea, which was still spoken of even now, nearly four years after she'd first heard it. And of the many names which had been associated with that story, one had stuck out to her – Uzushima Naruko, youkai of whirlpools. And even if the similarity in names was almost certainly coincidental, it was still surprising to hear something which reminded her so much of events at home.

"Well, then, Naruto-kun," she said, finally, "why did you want to follow me around today?" She frowned a bit. "You're not planning to pull some sort of prank on me, are you?"

Naruto shook his head frantically. "That's not it at all!"

"Well? Why did you want to follow me, then?"

The kid gulped, looking for all the world like Aya when someone caught her in a place that she had no right being in. She stared at him for a long moment, and watched as the boy struggled to decide what to say. "You were nice to me," he admitted, sounding embarrassed.

"Nice?" Hina asked, confused. She didn't remember doing anything particularly remarkable earlier that morning, nothing that warranted such interest, at any rate.

Naruto nodded. "Yeah," he said quietly. "You didn't yell at me to go away or ignore me like the rest of the villagers do."

It seemed at the shopkeeper's suspicions had been correct, then. This Naruto was definitely an orphan, and judging from his response, likely had no one to take care of him, either. She could certainly understand his motivations in latching on to the first person he perceived to be friendly. She herself was not a stranger to the crushing melancholy that loneliness could bring, and unlike her, and while she had some few friends who either could ward off the misfortune that she brought with her or simply didn't care about the bad luck, Naruto likely did not have anyone to talk to at all. Still, it really wasn't her problem; no matter how much sympathy she had for the kid, there was absolutely nothing she could do to improve his situation.

"What's your name?"

The boy's question jolted her out of her thoughts.

"Ah," she murmured. "I haven't introduced myself, have I? I am Kagiyama Hina." She smiled at him. "Pleased to meet you, Naruto-kun."

Naruto blushed a bit. "Pleased to meet you too, Hina-san," he parroted. Hina smiled again, and nodded at his words, waiting for him to say something else. After a moment of silence, it became clear that he wasn't going to say anything else, so she turned back to her food, instead. Naruto stayed silent, watching her eat, finally speaking up after she finished. "Hey," he said, "Hina-san, what were those dolls you were making earlier?"

"The dolls? They're called nagashi-bina," she explained. "A lot of the time, I make them using more expensive materials, but paper is the only thing that I can really get cheaply. And as for why I make them... It is a ritual of sorts, and I've made them long enough that it's become a habit."

The boy scrunched up his face a little. "I don't like them at all," he declared. He carefully looked at Hina, who frowned a bit. "I mean," he hastily amended, "they're pretty and all, but..."

"No, that's quite all right. They're used in a ritual of cleansing, to carry away peoples' impurity and misfortune. I'm not surprised that you found them a little unnerving. Everyone does, really."

"You're not mad at me?"

Hina shook her head. "Why would I be?"

Naruto smiled happily and hugged her. She froze for a moment at the contact, and then slowly let her arms wrap around the little boy's back. "I think you're pretty too, Hina-san," Naruto said. "And you smell nice."

She laughed a bit at that. "Thank you," Hina said quietly. Naruto only hugged her tighter in response. When he finally let go, she grimaced at the thin but noticeable aura of misfortune the boy had somehow acquired. She had dallied far too long, and now that she was no longer focused on the child, she could feel the impurity which she collected slowly becoming more and more concentrated. Apparently, it had once again reached the point where it could affect the humans she associated with. And while the child was unlikely to notice any misfortune dogging his footsteps for now, if she stayed any longer, no doubt Naruto would find himself followed persistently by bad luck for quite some time.

"What's wrong?" Naruto asked.

Hina sighed, making a show of looking at the position of the sun. "It's going to get dark soon," she told him, "and I should probably get going now. I'm leaving early tomorrow morning, after all, and I want to be well-rested for the journey. Besides, you should probably be going to sleep soon, as well."

Naruto looked downcast. "Can't you stay a bit longer?" he begged. "Please?"

She hesitated a moment, looking at the young boy, who seemed to be close to tears. "I'm sorry," she said softly, "but I really do have to go now. I'll visit again in the future, though, and I'll look for you whenever I'm in town."

He looked at her intently. "You promise?"

Hina nodded. "I promise," she said, with all the conviction she could muster. Despite that, Naruto still looked uncertain. Hina sighed again. She really did have to leave – it would be better for everyone, after all, but simply abandoning the boy like that left a bad taste in her mouth. She looked at the boy again. "Here," she said, slowly unwinding the red and white ribbon wrapped around her left wrist, "this is for you. It's a good luck charm. Keep it safe, all right?" She drained away the misfortune it had accrued from her contact with it and handed it to Naruto, who clutched it tightly to his chest.

"I'll keep it safe for you, Hina-san" he declared, "and I'll give it back to you when you visit again. That's a promise!"

She smiled softly. "Keep it," she said. "It's yours now. You can probably make better use of it than I can. Good bye for now, Naruto-kun. We'll meet again!" And with that, she walked away, waving over her shoulder as she left, leaving behind a young boy and a ribbon on the mountaintop and taking a strange feeling of happiness with her. Perhaps, she thought, as she left the next morning, she should visit places like these more often. All in all, it had been a most satisfying experience.

* * *

Judging from the amount of bandits who accosted travelers wandering between the elemental countries, crime was still commonplace despite the prevalence of ninja. There were several theories as to why. Keine had written some sort of thesis on the topic, relating it to income inequality and social instability. On the other hand, Aya had published an article in her newspaper speculating that the hidden villages encouraged the activities as a means to increase their own revenue.

Unfortunately, no matter which theory was correct, there still were bandits who roamed around looting merchant caravans and taking hostages. More importantly, there were still bandits who could interfere with her duties. Evidently, there were quite a few of them as well, judging from the group of twenty or so armed humans who had seen fit to accost her. It reminded her of her grandfather's stories about the outside world, back when he had been a young swordsman sworn to the service of the Saigyouji clan. The sight was a sobering reminder that the new world that she had to adapt to was, in many ways, completely different from the world which she had lived in for so long.

Youmu sighed, and let her hand fall to the hilt of the katana she kept strapped to her waist. "Look," she said. "Let me pass, and no one has to get hurt."

The leader of the group of men shook his head, and brandished the cudgel he held in his hand in what could possibly pass for an attempt at cowing her into submission. "No can do, missy. Now hand over all the money you have and those two swords you've got there, and we'll let you go without any hassle." The man smirked. "And if you don't, well... I can't really stop these guys from doing some more unsavory things once they get their hands on you."

"Humans," she muttered. Even though Reimu had quite explicitly stated that the spellcard restrictions need not apply when dealing with humans from the new outside world, she still didn't enjoy using her full powers on some otherwise helpless humans. It reminded her too much of darker days, of the times before the Hakurei shrine maiden had instituted the restrictions which prevented unnecessary loss of life, when she had, more often than not, resorted to force to resolve disputes.

The bandit coughed, and slapped his club into the palm of his hand a few times. "Well?" he asked. "What'll it be? I don't have all day here."

"I see that I have no choice," Youmu said.

"All right then. Hand over the swords first, and..."

She _moved_, disappearing from his sight and reappearing behind him in an instant, her sword already drawn from its scabbard and held in a guard position. "Sword Skill," Youmu intoned. "Flashing Cherry Blossoms." Dozens of pinkish-white slashes followed her path, and the corpse of the bandits' leader slumped to the ground. She looked around at the other bandits, who had collectively taken a step away from her. "Does anyone else intend to die today?" They fled, leaving the rapidly cooling corpse of their former leader behind.

Youmu sighed again, wiping off the thin sheen of blood that coated her blade with a handkerchief before ramming it back into its sheath with what was perhaps an unnecessary amount of force. The metallic smell of fresh blood was yet another reminder of days long past. It was unpleasant enough that she was sorely tempted to simply leave, but her sense of decency demanded that she do something, anything, about the body in the road. It took only a few minutes to drag the corpse into the thickets by the side of the dirt path and kick some dirt over the dark patch of drying blood that indicated where the body had lain.

Those few minutes, however, were apparently enough for someone to notice and attempt to sneak up behind her, judging from the faint sounds of cloth rubbing on cloth. She laid her hand back on the hilt of her katana. "Who goes there?"

A man in the green flak vest that seemed to be standard for ninja from this area dropped out of a tree behind her, and she whirled around to face him. "Foreign kunoichi," he demanded, "identify yourself and your purpose here."

"I am Konpaku Youmu," she said, "here to establish diplomatic relations with your village."

The ninja seemed a bit taken aback at her statement, but if anything in her simple statement had disturbed him in some fashion, he hid it well. "Very well, then," he said, walking slowly towards her, pulling a small wooden chit out of one of the many pouches on his vest and holding it out to her. She accepted it from him and tucked it into a pocket. "You may proceed down this road to Konoha. Do not lose that chip – it is a guarantee of safe passage, and if you are spotted near the village without it, there will be unpleasant consequences."

And with that, he dashed away without a single question regarding the dead body by the side of the road, jumping up into the treetops and quickly disappearing from sight. There were a few more rustles from the trees surrounding her, indicating that the ninja's comrades had left as well.

She shook her head. What a strange place, indeed.

* * *

Youmu flexed her hands nervously. In all honesty, she hadn't really wanted to take this job, not when it involved leaving Yuyuko-sama to fend for herself for so long, but when Reimu had carefully explained to her that everyone else qualified to do it was either busy dealing with the repercussions of the transition between worlds or busy keeping the youkai in check, she had acquiesced. Still, even the very thought of it was strange. Her? A diplomat? But, it seemed, for better or for worse, that she was to represent her home on unfamiliar grounds.

The remainder of her trip to this "Konohagakure" had been relatively uneventful, all things told. It hadn't taken her very long at all to arrive at the gates of the place, which, despite it's claims of being a "hidden village", was more of a city than a village, and not particularly hidden, all things told. The police manning the gates had waved her along without a second glance, once she'd presented the chit and explained her purpose there, and from there, a few simple questions had directed her to the tall tower overlooking the rest of the city. When she'd arrived at the tower and announced her presence, the secretary manning the desk had informed her that "the Hokage will be with you shortly." And since then, she'd sat down in a lounge and waited, and waited, and waited...

To be honest, it wasn't the waiting that bothered her. There were any number of reasons that might necessitate putting off an unscheduled meeting with an envoy from an otherwise unknown nation, after all, any number of domestic crises that she might not know about. Besides, she hardly had a reason to complain – it wasn't as if Yukari-sama would ever be prompt if she could help it. Nor was it the unfamiliar, chafing weight of the metallic headband neatly affixed to her upper left arm, something which Sanae and the others had insisted that she wear on her person at all times. No, if anything, her annoyance stemmed from the other person in the room, a young, dark-haired teenager who kept on sneaking glances at her, or, perhaps, more precisely, the two swords she carried strapped across her back. Evidently, from the metal band tied across his forehead, he was a ninja. Clearly not much of one, though, considering the ease with which she could identify the cause of his inordinate curiosity, though she supposed that some allowances had to be made, considering his young age.

"You know," she said finally, after about half an hour of idly watching the ninja failing miserably at his attempts to hide his staring, "you aren't very good at this whole subtlety thing."

The kid blushed. "They're beautiful," he said.

"So you aspire to be a swordsman?" Youmu asked. The boy nodded silently. "That's a good dream, kid," she said slowly, "but it is one that will take a lot of hard work to achieve." After that incident with the Taoists, the last she had been publicly involved in, a group of children in the human village had idolized her, declaring their intention to become swordsmen, "just like Konpaku-san." After a while of them bugging her to give them lessons whenever she went shopping, she'd agreed to teach them a little of what she knew. None of the children had shown up past the fourth lesson. Knowing how to wield a sword was not simply a matter of poking with the sharp end, and very few had the determination, or the time, for that matter, to learn the nuances of swordplay.

"Hey!" the boy snapped. "Who are you calling a kid? You can't be that much older than me!"

She blinked. Wasn't it obvious that she was... Oh. "Whatever you say," she muttered.

The kid grumbled a bit under his breath. "Say," he said, after a moment, sounding hopeful. "Could you teach me, then? You look like you know what you're doing."

Youmu stared at him. "Are you sure you're supposed to be a ninja, kid?"

He jerked his head in a nod and held up a hand, pointing at himself with his thumb. "Of course!" he said. "Gekko Hayate, chuunin."

"I see. In that case, are you sure you're allowed to seek instruction from a foreigner?" Youmu tapped her fingernail on the headband on her arm in a series of sharp clicks, and Hayate's face slowly turned pale, and then flushed a brilliant scarlet as he took in the three unbroken lines of the qian trigram scored across its surface.

The Hokage's secretary walked in at that moment, saving the boy from any further embarrassment. "The Hokage will see you now," she announced.

Youmu nodded and stood up, walking through the large double doors and into the Hokage's office without a second glance.

The office itself was roughly what she had expected. A low desk, piled high with papers, all four walls covered in bookcases filled with dozens of tomes and scrolls, and a pair of large windows which overlooked the village off to one side. Granted, some of the details were different – a brush and a block of ink sat on the desk in lieu of one of the self-inking pens which were in abundant supply at Rinnosuke's shop – but, overall, it would not have been out of place at, say, Eirin's clinic. As for the man sitting behind the desk, though, that was a different story.

From the obsession that the people of this world had with strength, she had expected the military leader of a ninja village to be some sort of man, young enough to be in the prime of his life, yet at the same time old enough to have the experience necessary to manage a large organization. Instead, the man sitting behind the desk was someone who should have been spending time with grandchildren, rather than managing military affairs. It was surprising, and also impressive. To remain the leader of a ninja village, even at this age, no doubt took a great deal of skill, especially in a society which seemed to take the opinion that strength mattered above all else.

The doors closed behind her soundlessly, and the old man behind the desk stood. "Greetings, Konpaku Youmu," he said gravely. "I am Sarutobi Hiruzen, Sandaime Hokage of Konohagakure, and it is my honor welcome you to my fine village."

She bowed to him. "Thank you, Hokage-dono," she said. "I am honored to be here." She straightened up, and was surprised to see that the Hokage had returned the gesture.

"So," he said kindly. "What brings you here today, Konpaku-san? And from a previously unknown village, no less?" The grandfatherly air the Hokage exuded was overpowering, and Youmu had to remind herself that it was likely only a front. This man standing in front of her was someone who had kept his position, not through brute force, but rather, through finesse. No, the impression that she got from him was almost certainly false, and she would do well to remember that.

"I am here to formally request an opening of diplomatic relations between our two villages." She took a deep breath. "In addition, I have been permitted to negotiate economic treaties within certain parameters."

"And your village?" Youmu froze. "It would be rather inconvenient to negotiate with you or any other representative of your village when I do not know its name, no?"

Her face burned in embarrassment. "Kekkaigakure," she said. "I am here on behalf of Kekkaigakure, sir." The Village Hidden in the Boundary. The idea for the name, patterned off of that of the ninja villages which studded the continent, had initially come from Margatroid, of all people. Still, it was remarkably appropriate, and it had quickly caught on. Yukari-sama, of course, had been quite amused once she learned of the traditional titles held by the leaders of each village.

"I see," the Hokage said. "Well, it does not behoove me to force a guest to the negotiating table, not when she has just arrived from distant lands. You will, of course, be provided with accommodations here for as long as necessary. If you would like, we can begin discussions tomorrow. However, considering the limited powers invested in you, I believe that it may be more prudent to meet with your leader face-to-face instead."

She nodded, relieved. "That would be preferable." Letting Yukari-sama deal with the negotiations would be much better than performing a task which she had no real training and very little preparation for.

"In that case, then..." The Hokage looked over his desk, selecting a thin scroll from among the many papers on his desk and handing it to her. "This is a formal invitation to your leader, whoever he may be, to meet with me here to discuss the terms of our... coexistence."

Youmu nodded again. "Thank you very much," she said, bowing again. "By your leave?"

The Hokage bowed again in response. "My secretary will make temporary arrangements for you, if you so wish." He smiled. "I hope you enjoy your stay here in Konoha."

* * *

Sarutobi Hiruzen, Sandaime Hokage, sighed as the girl left. To think that someone this young would be sent alone into unknown territory... He himself would have been uncomfortable doing such a mission without at least a full team as an escort, even in his youth. Just what kind of a place was this Kekkaigakure, that they would resort to such measures? "Well, Jiraiya?" he asked to a corner of his office. "First impressions?"

The air in front of a bookshelf shimmered, and the ninja in question stretched a bit as he stood from where he had been crouching during that exchange. "Nice figure," he said. "A bit young, though. Overall, I'd give her a-"

"Jiraiya!" he snapped.

"Sorry, sorry. She seems genuine. Judging from the way she carried herself and the swords, likely a close combat specialist. Possible kekkai genkai as well, if that hazy cloud floating around her head is anything to go by. The girl wasn't particularly suited to the job. You could see how relieved she looked when she found out that she didn't actually have to do any negotiation." He laughed a bit. "But besides that?" He shrugged. "This Kekkaigakure is probably extremely low on manpower, if they'd send someone like her to speak with you. And alone, no less."

"And the seals?"

"Do you really doubt my skills that much, sensei?" Jiraiya sighed at his stare. "All taken care of," he said, finally. "And she didn't seem to notice, either."

Hiruzen sighed, and sat back down. "Track her when she leaves. Discreetly, of course. Something like this... it has the potential to destabilize the balance of power, and at the very least, I want to make sure that we know where potential enemies might originate from."

Jiraiya nodded. "Of course."

"Dismissed." Hiruzen sighed again after Jiraiya left. He really was getting to old for this.


	2. Chapter 2

**On the Boundary Between Light and Shadow**

The girl Jiraiya was tasked to follow made straight for the northern border of Fire Country as soon as she left Konoha. In the four days it took her to reach the border, Jiraiya was a farmer, a vagabond, a merchant, and a mercenary for hire. Taking on so many identities was perhaps a bit excessive, especially considering the distance at which he was trailing his target. Still, it couldn't hurt to be careful. There was always a chance, after all, that he might be discovered, and he would rather not risk discovery due to taking unnecessary risks, much less from failing to follow proper procedures with regards to surveillance.

Trailing her proved rather unfruitful, however, almost to the point that it was boring, to be honest. Apart from confirming that the girl was indeed proficient in kenjutsu, from an encounter with a singularly unfortunate bandit, there was little else to find out. Still, he kept at his task, shadowing this "Youmu" as she quickly made her way north. Her schedule, from what Jiraiya could discern, was almost mechanical in its rigidness. Breakfast and basic sword katas of an unknown style in the morning, followed by travel until sunset, broken only by a short halt for lunch. At night, dinner and a repeat of the katas from the morning.

Despite the long days of travel, however, the girl displayed no outward signs of fatigue. It was quite impressive. To continuously travel on foot for over fourteen hours a day without resting for any notable period of time was no mean feat. He doubted that he himself had the capability to travel so far so quickly – he certainly would not have been able to at her age, at least. That the girl could do so indicated that she had, at some point, gone through a truly enormous amount of physical conditioning.

On the fifth day of his observance, however, something remarkable occurred. They had crossed over the border from Fire Country the day before, late in the afternoon, the lush forests common to his home transitioning first into an expanse of flat, level grassland and then into a series of rolling hills. In the morning, the girl had followed the routine that she had set down, eating quickly and taking some time to repeat the by now familiar katas before hurrying along on her path north. Sometime before noon, though, she suddenly stopped in her tracks as if crossing some sort of invisible line.

Jiraiya ducked down under the crest of a hill, cursing under his breath as she slowly scrutinized her surroundings. Something he did, apparently, had drawn the girl's suspicion, and now he would have to proceed even more carefully than before. Perhaps his disguise had slipped somehow? He sighed, peering back down the hill where the girl stood. If she confronted him about it, today he was Kaneshiro Takeru, struggling trader, on his way to visit the few subsistence farmers who eked out a living farming the poor, rocky soil of the unclaimed land between Rice and Waterfall. But no, she hadn't seemed to take notice of him at all, and now she was...

He blinked, and rubbed his eyes in disbelief. Yes, the subject of his surveillance had apparently just risen up from the ground and flown away without any apparent means of doing so. For a while, he stood there, staring up into the sky, looking after the girl's rapidly disappearing figure. Flight, while not entirely unheard of, always involved some sort of aid, whether from Fuuton jutsu and large fans to catch the wind or from summoned birds. But this type of flight that the girl had just displayed – this was unprecedented.

Jiraiya sighed, and slowly shook his head before biting his thumb and slamming the hand on the ground. A small puff of white smoke heralded the arrival of a messenger toad. Hiruzen needed to hear about this, and _now_.

Kekkaikagure was much as she had left it. The Hakurei Shrine stood on top of a tall hill at the center of a slowly expanding ring of half-constructed buildings, and while a handful of workers from the human village were there, slowly working on completing work on various buildings, the place still felt deserted. Unlike in the human village in Gensokyo itself, no one truly lived here – while a few families had expressed interest in moving to the village still being constructed in the outside world, none of the buildings slated to be part of the residential district had yet been completed, and, unless priorities drastically shifted, none would be completed for quite some time. As it was, the empty, unlit buildings loomed over her in the fading sunlight, she shivered. Walking through empty, unlit streets, whether in Kekkaikagure or elsewhere had always made her feel a bit uneasy, and...

"Shameimaru-san," Youmu snapped, her voice echoing off of the empty shells of the buildings around her. "How long have you been following me?"

"Not long," came the reply from above. Shameimaru Aya, "journalist" and prominent member of the tengu clan on the mountain, vaulted off of a roof and landed in front of her, a fan in the shape of a maple leaf in one hand and her ever-present camera in the other. "I only really started once you got in the village limits. Gotta make sure you're not someone _hostile_ or anything, right?" She grinned, pointing towards the center of the village. "Anyway, we didn't really expect you to get back so quickly, but if you hurry, you might be able to catch our great and glorious leader before she heads back for the day. Come on, I'll take you there."

Youmu glared at her. "I am perfectly capable of finding my own way to the Shrine," she said, a bit stiffly. "There's no need to follow me there. At any rate, shouldn't you get back to patrolling?"

The tengu waved her hand dismissively. "The others can take care of it," she said. "I'm not the _only _one on patrol duty, ya know? 'Sides, I want to hear about this place you visited." She leaned over, putting her arm around Youmu's back, slinging it over her shoulder. "Konoha-somethingorother, was it?"

"Konohakagure," Youmu replied tersely, slowly levering Aya's arm off of her shoulder. "And no, it was not that remarkable, compared to the cities in the outside world. Well, the original outside world, at any rate. And could you possibly get your arm_ off of me_?"

"Sorry, sorry." The apology was not particularly convincing, and Aya was still a bit too close for comfort, but it would have to do. "So how'd the trip go?"

"There were lots of bandits," Youmu grumbled, staring down at the ground. "I frightened most of them off, but some felt fortunate whenever they encountered me. They were not. I must say, though, that it seems strange that Iencountered any bandits in the first place, given that I encountered some sort of border guard almost immediately after driving off one particularly lar..." Aya nodded absently, making a vague noise of agreement. Youmu looked at her. The tengu had somehow managed to produce a pen and notepad from somewhere on her person, and was scribbling frantically, half-listening to what she was saying. She sighed. "Do you always have that with you?"

Aya nodded again. "Yeah," she said, pen held to her lips. "It kinda comes with the job description, ya know. And now that I'm officially in charge of surveying and reconnaissance and a bunch of other stuff, it's even more important that I have this with me, since I'm supposed to debrief anyone who comes back after leaving the village. Well, I'm not the only one who's supposed to do that, but hey. I'm here now, right?" She frowned a bit, studying whatever it was that she had written on the page. "Did the guard give you any sort of pass?" she asked.

"Debrief?" Youmu asked.

"Well, basically I'm supposed to interview everyone who comes back into the village about their experiences outside. There more we learn about the nature of these hidden villages, the better we can coexist besides them. And answer the question, please."

"Yes, he did," Youmu confirmed. "A painted wooden chip, small enough that I could easily keep it in a pocket."

The scribbling resumed. "Any markings on it? On either side?"

"The symbol of the village was displayed prominently on both sides. If there were any others, I did not see them."

"Hmm. And what happened afterward?"

Thankfully, Aya seemed to be running out topics to inquire after by the time that the two of them arrived at the Shrine on foot, the veritable torrent of questions slowly dying down to a small trickle. The constant interruptions as Youmu recounted the details of her fairly uneventful trip were rather irritating, especially since most of the questions were almost entirely about minor details – about things she hadn't bothered to take note of, especially regarding the behavior of the ninja she had seen. Still, she put up with it, despite her personal misgivings. Despite her annoyance, it wasn't hard to figure out how information like that could be important, and she resolved to be more aware the next time she left the Barrier.

Still, it was somewhat relieving to find herself walking up the long set of stone stairs towards the torii, an elegant wooden gate which marked the division between the main body of the village and the Shrine itself. By the time that they were halfway up the stairs, Aya had finally stopped asking questions, and the two of them walked up in companionable silence. Normally, she would have flown up, but there was something that stopped her from doing so, some sort of strange feeling that she couldn't quite identify.

At the top of the stairs, a short, stone paved walkway led to the main building of the Hakurei Shrine. It was a small complex of buildings – the shrine and the attendant shed sat at the terminus of the paved path, a simple wooden donation box displayed prominently inside, while a separate building served as Hakurei Reimu's place of residence. The feeling she'd had intensified then, and, as she passed through the open gate, it hit her. There was something sacred about making the journey up to the Shrine.

Traditionally, the torii marked the transition between the sacred and the profane. It demarcated the boundary between the impure world of humanity and the consecrated ground of the shrine. And in much the same way, the Hakurei Shrine itself marked the border between the outside world and Gensokyo itself. Initially, Youmu had assumed that the name 'Kekkaikagure' had been a joke, referring to Yukari-sama's abilities. In this context, though... Seeing as how all of Gensokyo was hidden within the boundary designated by the Shrine, it truly was a "Village Hidden in the Border."

"Home," she muttered under her breath.

"You haven't been outside much, have you?" Aya asked.

Youmu shook her head.

"I lived here," Aya said, gesturing around at the shrine, "long before Gensokyo even existed." She smiled. "I remember the days when Yakumo Yukari was just some crazy youkai living out in the middle of a forest. I've traveled all over Japan, and I admit – the outside world is a wonderful place. They have simple things, things like tap water, public transportation, and electricity that make life much, much easier. Still, though, the place that we live in is truly special. It always has been special, and it always will be – after all, this is my home, and nothing can ever change that. Remember that. It doesn't matter if you live in Eientei or Mayohiga or Hakugyokurou or wherever. Gensokyo is home. Our home." The tengu clapped her on the back and headed back down the stairs. "See you around, okay?" she called. "And tell Yukari that I'll have the report done by tomorrow afternoon!"

Youmu nodded, stunned, as Aya ran halfway down the set of steps and leaped up into the air, quickly disappearing into the distance. She stood there for a long moment, thinking about what Aya had said.

Her home, the place where she lived, was Hakugyokurou, the White Jade Palace in the Netherworld. It was where she was born and raised, and she knew every inch of it, from the many beautiful gardens which she maintained to the withered cherry tree which sat in a place of pride in the central courtyard. And before, that had been all she'd needed to know. Why did being from Gensokyo matter, when the phrase 'Gensokyo' encompassed the entirety of the world she knew?

Now, though, things were different. She could reasonably be expected to leave the world inside the Barrier for extended periods of time, like she had just done. And no matter how poorly she might get along with some of the others who lived alongside her, they still shared a common home. The Shrine, Myouren Temple, all of it was _home_, even if she didn't live there. Now, with an actively hostile outside world, the exact place that she came from did not matter – only that she was from Gensokyo itself. That, no doubt, was the point that Aya had been trying to make.

"Yes," she said quietly. "I'm home." And with that, she finally turned around and headed towards the shrine.

Unsurprisingly, the shrine itself was deserted. None of the few people who visited Reimu on a routine basis usually came by this late in the day, and it was exceedingly unlikely that anyone from outside would be here. The outbuilding that Reimu lived in, however, was brightly lit, and judging from the faint sounds of conversation which drifted out from inside and the soft yellow emanating from the paper windows, there were quite a few people occupying it at the moment.

Youmu walked up to the door and rapped sharply on the frame. The sounds from inside continued unabated. Youmu sighed and knocked again, more insistently this time. There was still no response. For a moment, she considered simply leaving and coming back in the morning. The message she carried, though, was important enough that Yukari-sama would be displeased if she were not informed of her return in a timely manner, to say the least. Youmu muttered a quiet apology under her breath, and opened the door.

Yukari-sama had apparently left already, as Aya had warned might happen, but Reimu and two other humans she knew only in passing were still present, sitting around a low table covered in papers, in the middle of a loud conversation. The shrine maiden looked over as the door opened, half-rising from her seat. "Konpaku-san!" she greeted, stuffing the pair of ofuda that she had drawn back into her shirt. "You're back! We weren't expecting you this early. Did the negotiations go well?"

Youmu shrugged. "The leader of the village was content to arrange for a future meeting with Yukari-sama," she replied, pulling out the scroll . "This is supposed to be a writ of safe passage through the lands of Fire Country." She laid it on the table and sat down between Reimu and one of the two others, a light-haired shopkeeper who, unlike most of his peers, dealt with items gathered from Outside.

"There doesn't seem to be anything obviously wrong with this," Reimu said, unrolling the scroll and laying it flat on the table. "Something about this feels off, though. I think..."

The man next to her frowned. "This is a device which grants its holder limited safety," he announced, after examining the piece of paper for a moment, "and it also contains a component which allows a third party to identify this scroll's location and distance from them."

"Well, I can't say we didn't expect something like this. It's not like it matters that much in the long run, anyway." Reimu sighed, rolling up the scroll, which disappeared quickly into her voluminous sleeves. "I'll give this to Yukari tomorrow. She'll know what to do with it."

As he continued traveling north, following the directions from the tracking seal that he'd carefully hidden in the scroll that his old teacher had given to the foreign emissary, the hills Jiraiya had been traveling through slowly turned into mountains, tall rocky outcroppings of bare stone capped in snow and ice jutting out from the dense vegetation of the forests in its valleys. Thankfully, the sheer amount of plant life made it fairly easy for him to conceal his movements, although, at the same time, the need for absolute secrecy slowed him down greatly.

As far as he'd known, no one lived this far north, mostly due to the inhospitability of the dense forest and the distance from any major population centers, and he doubted that his previous identity as a merchant would serve any use here. Indeed, up until this point, none of the three nations bordering this patch of land had bothered claiming it. As it was, due to Fire Country's sheer size, the daimyo had severe difficulty in governing the remote northern reaches of his nation, and neither Rice nor Waterfall would accept any incursion into what was unofficially a buffer zone between the two nations.

The entire region was, by and large, an unknown. Initial surveys had been made, of course, and at great expense, but in the end it had been concluded that there was no major benefit in developing the region. As such, it was a relatively low priority to Konoha, which had other, more pressing problems to deal with. Still, something didn't quite add up. The most recent annual reconnaissance mission had been made seven months ago, and the squad assigned to the task had reported that nothing was out of the ordinary.

Furthermore, despite his best efforts, he hadn't managed to identify anything from among the many intelligence reports he'd received in the past year that even hinted at the formation of a new village. No bulk shipments of building materials, no reports of population migration, nothing. That something this large had slipped past his intelligence network was worrisome. If he'd somehow managed to miss _this_, what did that say about the more subtle day-to-day business that he was supposed to keep track of?

For now, though, there was nothing to do but continue ever northwards. Despite the help with concealment, the dense undergrowth proved to be as much of a hindrance as it was a benefit. Foliage reduced his range of vision significantly, not to mention the fact that the wide area topographical maps that he relied on did not mark obstacles such as fallen trees or deep ravines, all of which impeded his progress. Still, Jiraiya made fairly good time, jumping from tree to tree where he could, and dashing along the ground where he could not. Even as he approached closer and closer to the place where the scroll was kept, there were no signs of human habitation in the forest around him, no smell of smoke or the myriad scents on the wind, no visible patrols of ninja to evade, no clear paths that traders could follow to ship in materials in short supply. This trip, it seemed, was raising far more questions than it answered

It took him five days to find the village, five days of travel through dense forests, struggling to maintain the correct course. Still, in the end, he'd succeeded, and soon enough, he found himself at the edge of the forest, looking out at a roughly circular clear-cut area several kilometers in diameter. The village itself was not much to look at – a small cluster of half-finished buildings surrounded some sort of shrine on a hill. It was nowhere near as large as Konoha was, considering that the entire cleared area could easily fit within the confines of the Forest of Death alone several times over.

Simply judging from the size of the village, his earlier judgment about manpower seemed to have been correct. This place most likely would not prove to be a threat, given it's miniscule size. Furthermore, considering its isolated location, contractors for missions would be few and far between, and, in the end, this Kekkaigakure most likely would end up similar to the Land of Rain under Hanzo's rule. As it was, Amegakure, the village he ruled, was impoverished and wracked by internal divisions, due to both the depredations inflicted upon it during the Second Shinobi War and Hanzo's attempts at achieving complete autarky. At this point, it had been relegated to being a minor nuisance at best, notable only for the fact that it had turned out a ninja as exceptional as Hanzo, who, based on Jiraiya's estimates, would be the last ninja of close to that caliber to come out of Ame in the immediate future.

What was concerning, though, was the complete lack of residents. Despite the aid of his chakra enhanced vision, he could not find any residents inside the village. Apart from some construction workers, the entire place was deserted, as far as he could tell. There were no guards, no residents, and most importantly, no ninja, not even the girl who he'd followed here from Konoha, which meant either that he'd been lead to the wrong place, which was unlikely, given the nature of the tracking seals, or that there were other facilities hidden nearby, underground or elsewhere, that he'd missed. Neither option was at all palatable.

Moreover, his previously thought-out plans on how to infiltrate a hidden village had all been rendered useless. There was nothing here to infiltrate, unlike what he'd expected, and the fact that the forest surrounding the village had been cleared mean that he would have little to no cover if he wanted to somehow sneak in.

Jiraiya sighed, tentatively marking the spot where the shrine stood on his map with a large question mark. For a moment, he was sorely tempted to investigate the village in greater detail, but the risk of detection made any such actions foolhardy at best. Even if it seemed that the girl he'd been trailing before hadn't detected his presence, there was no guarantee that there weren't other tracking teams who could find him, or for that matter, that she had not been pretending to not notice him trailing her. Perhaps later, if this 'village' eventually became populated, he might make an attempt at infiltration, but for now, there was nothing he could do. By and large, Kekkaigakure remained a mystery, and he had uncovered very little about the village itself that he had not already suspected. By any reasonable measure, his mission here had ended in failure.

He stuck around for a few more days, unsuccessfully trying to ferret out any hidden bases, before leaving, disgruntled with just how little he'd found out. It seemed that he'd raised more questions than he'd answered during this little expedition.

And as he sped south, back towards Konoha, he wondered. Every night, the workers would head to the shrine, leaving the next morning with armloads of building materials and no small amount of food. But just where did all of this come from? No matter how extensive the assumed storage space under the shrine might be, he doubted that there would be enough provisions to continuously feed everyone at the village for any extended period of time, not with the amount of building materials which had to be stored there. As far as he could tell, however, none of the workers seemed worried about food, and no farms had been set up in the vicinity. And just how had they gotten all of that iron, anyway? There were only three corporations that traded extensively in ores and processed metals, and none of the discrepancies in the routine shipments of iron and iron ore could be linked to this place.

Nothing about this place made any sense _at all_.

Yakumo Yukari, mistress of boundaries, nominal leader of Kekkaigakure, glared at the crowded room. She understood the necessity of holding council meetings – she had called this one herself, upon Youmu's return – but the sheer amount of time it took for everyone to arrive and settle down was still irritating. So, instead of doing something productive such as making sure that the Hakurei Barrier properly isolated Gensokyo from the outside world or discussing defensive plans with the tengu, she sat here, staring balefully at everyone else.

There was at least one representative from almost every major faction in Gensokyo present. Really, the only people missing were... She twitched as the door behind her slid open and Yasaka Kanako marched in, followed closely by an embarrassed-looking Kawashiro Nitori.

"You're late," Yukari snapped as Kanako sat down beside her. "What kept you?"

"Kawashiro-san wanted my advice on the nature of the devices that we might want to export," she said unapologetically. "I don't know if you've gotten a copy of the results from the last geological survey that the tengu conducted, but the region of land immediately surrounding the area enclosed by the Barrier lacks several crucial types of minerals which are also not present within Gensokyo proper. In particular, I believe that, of the minerals that kappa mentioned that they'd need, there aren't any easily accessible bauxite or rare earth deposits. If we want to find sources of these minerals, we'll need something that we can use to trade for raw materials, especially if we want to manufacture firearms and ammunition in any reasonable quantity."

"Well, at least you have a reason," Yukari admitted, grudgingly. "Last time, Suika forgot about the meeting and didn't show up until an hour after we'd given up on waiting for her and began without her." She sighed. "Just... in the future, try to be prompt. We have all been incredibly busy since the transition, and the sooner we can get this meeting finished, the more time we will have to work on other things."

Kanako nodded, and Yukari stood. "Now that everyone is here," she announced, trying to make her voice heard over the general clamor, "we can begin." The room fell silent remarkably quickly, for once, and she continued. "As you all know, about two weeks ago, we agreed to send representatives to the major powers in this region. It seems that our attempts at negotiation have begun to pan out – the leader of Konohagakure, one Sarutobi Hiruzen, has agreed to meet with us to discuss further relations between us and his village."

She sighed. "It appears, however, that in the process, the location of this village has been discovered. While this is hardly unexpected, the manner in which is discovered is alarming. There is much about this world that we do not yet know. Apparently, the people outside have created some sort of tracking device that functions using a type of sealing that we know nothing of. One such device was embedded in the scroll granting our representatives safe passage through the Land of Fire. I will take this opportunity to remind everyone that any artifacts recovered from outside are to be sent to Kawashiro-san for study. The more we know about the methods these ninja use, the more likely we will be able to prevent similar occurrences in the future."

She paused here, and smiled before continuing. "In any case, the invitation sent to us permits us five members in our delegation. As discussed before, I will be bringing Morichika Rinnosuke, Yasaka Kanako, Hijiri Byakuren, and Shameimaru Aya along with me as parties to the negotiation. I plan on leaving tomorrow afternoon. If there are no objections?"

There was some amount of discontented grumbling from the crowd, but, thankfully, in the end, no one said anything. The last discussion about who she should bring along with her on diplomatic visits had ended up in a fight between Byakuren and Toyosatomimi no Miko, both of whom had objected quite strenuously to the other's inclusion. In the end, Byakuren had won out, though it had been until several days that the two had managed to speak to each other on civil terms, and even then only with great reluctance.

"Moving on, then. It has been suggested multiple times that bringing along samples of possible trade goods would be prudent for a demonstrative purpose..."

As the meeting dragged on longer and longer and the inevitable bickering started, Yukari groaned, rubbing her forehead in an attempt to stave off the upcoming headache. While it was nice to see that everyone would defer to her final decision, the constant arguments over minutia not even worth debating were draining, and the sheer amount of work required to keep the discussions on topic and stop people from sniping at each other did not do anything to improve her mood.

Still, in the end, she had decided upon a list goals to aim for and concessions that could be made that was at least acceptable to everyone present. Hopefully, whoever she met with in Konoha would be easier to deal with. At least there, she wouldn't have to deal with Kanako getting into a shouting match with Reimu over something entirely irrelevant.

"I don't like this," the old man said. "I don't like this one whit. Are you sure, Hiruzen, that this is the best course of action?"

The Hokage looked out across his village through the windows in his office and away from his old teammate's questioning stare. "No, Homura" he said wearily. "I am not. But we cannot afford to make even more enemies, not when Konoha still has not recovered from the losses sustained during the Third War, much less the Kyuubi attack."

"And the solution is to allow five foreigners into Konoha? I've seen the profiles that the tracking teams have generated. One civilian, accompanied by four shinobi with unknown abilities and unknown motivations. This is far too risky. Three years ago, Kumo managed to cause an inordinate amount of chaos with just _one_ envoy."

"Security procedures with regards to visiting dignitaries have been revised since then." He grimaced. "And even if something of a similar nature were to occur, Jiraiya's reports indicate that Kekkaigakure is a small village, without any sort of political leverage. We know that they've envoys to Kumo, Iwa, and Kiri so far, and no doubt Suna will be receiving a visit soon. As far as we can determine, their desire for peace is genuine."

Mitokado Homura grunted. "Perhaps," he said. "But the timing of their visit is rather suspicious, what with the trouble we're having with the Uchiha."

"Are you suggesting," Hiruzen snapped, "that the Uchiha clan is conspiring with the ninja of a hidden village that no one had even heard of a month ago?"

The councilor shook his head. "Merely pointing out that this is not a convenient time for us to be holding meetings with a foreign power, no matter how small it might be. This is the third time that you've had to reschedule a meeting with Fugaku, and I fear that he may be getting impatient."

Hiruzen sighed. Uchiha Fugaku had been raising trouble ever since the incident with Orochimaru, demanding increased powers and funding for the Military Police force that he headed and aggressively expanding its size. He had also stalled when asked to open up the police force to outsiders, citing security concerns. And while it was a valid excuse, considering that the police kept tabs on all of Konoha's active-duty ninja, Fugaku's unwillingness to compromise on even the most important issues made dealing with him difficult, even at the best of times. The visiting delegation from Kekkaigakure was, according to the data from the tracking seals, due to arrive around noon, and the following meetings no doubt would take quite a bit of time. Unfortunately, postponing his meeting with Fugaku would only give the man more excuses to cause trouble, but he would just have to wait.

Jiraiya's reports on Kekkaigakure had been remarkably incomplete, all things told. No real estimate of manpower, no listing of capabilities of known kekkai genkai, no information on notable ninja aligned with the village. The only real information that he'd gotten from the trip was the location of an under-construction facility that might or might not have been the village proper, and the fact that several members of the village had access to either a jutsu or a kekkai genkai that allowed unaided flight. If the reports hadn't been delivered by Jiraiya's signature toads, Hiruzen would have suspected that Jiraiya had been compromised somehow – while Jiraiya had certainly had his share of failures, this was the first time that he'd failed this badly at information gathering. The lack of information was concerning. If even Jiraiya had been unable to discover anything of import, what did that say about Kekkaigakure's counter-intelligence capabilities?

Hiruzen sighed again as he saw what he had been waiting for, and turned away from the window. "It is far too late to back out now," he said quietly. "Our guests will be at the gate soon, and I must be there to greet them. Homura, if you could gather Koharu and the others?" And with that, he left, making his way to the western gate, smiling grimly.

Konoha had only one tentative ally: Suna. His village was beset on all sides by enemies – much of northern Fire Country bordered on potentially hostile territory, and if anyone caught wind of the internal turmoil, it was entirely possible that Konoha's old enemies would seize the opportunity. If Jiraiya was correct about Kekkaigakure's location, and he could handle the negotiations properly...

Konoha needed an ally in the north, someone who could stall the combined forces of Kumo and Iwa in the event of war long enough for Konoha to send reinforcements to its northern border. And if he had to abandon an ally during wartime to preserve his own village, then that was merely another cost he had to pay, even if it left a bad taste in his mouth. His own feelings were secondary to Konoha's survival, after all – reputation did not matter if your village didn't exist, as drowned Uzushiogakure could attest.

It wouldn't even be hard to secure an alliance. Kekkaigakure would be weak, and small, having just emerged on the world stage, bereft of friends and with enemies on all sides. For the first time in a long while, _he_ would be the one with the advantageous position on the negotiating table. Konoha's sheer size guaranteed that it was stronger and had a better economy, and its position directly to Kekkaigakure's south guaranteed that he would be the best option for aid. Yes, surely, the only major problem he would have would be convincing his shinobi forces that such an alliance would be in Konoha's best interests.

And then he met Yakumo Yukari, and all of his carefully-laid plans fell apart.


	3. Chapter 3

**On the Boundary Between Light and Shadow**

_Consider a youkai like Ibuki Suika, the Hakurei Shrine's resident oni. I think we can all agree that she is both extremely strong and extremely proficient in hand-to-hand combat. Hypothetically, then, how many typical humans can she kill if she were to go on a rampage, before dying herself? A hundred? A thousand? Ten thousand? No matter how strong she is there is a point beyond which she will become tired to the point that she is physically unable to fight any longer, no matter what her wishes might be._

_This is the case for any individual, youkai or otherwise. Anyone can be killed simply through sheer weight of numbers. And while there are the occasional ninja who can claim to be stronger than an average youkai, they are few and far between. How many can a lone ninja kill? How many ninja are there? And how many troops can a daimyo muster, should he choose to call upon his feudal levies and march to war? When a single ninja takes over twelve years to fully train, every single shinobi is an irreplaceable asset, especially considering the extraordinarily high rate of attrition during what passes as peacetime._

_Further consider the relative size of the population of ninja to the population of humans who can be conscripted into armies, and the true nature of the relationship of the hidden villages to the countries in which they reside becomes clear. In exchange for defending a daimyo's territories from foreign ninja, a hidden village is permitted the right to base itself within that territory, and, in addition, is accorded some nominal degree of autonomy. This is, in some sense, an unspoken agreement, seeing as no contract outlining these terms appears to exist._

_The ninja behave because the daimyo can cut off supplies of food to the hidden village and lay siege with massive numerical superiority – he can afford to lose fifty men to kill one ninja, after all, not to mention that the spearmen that form the bulk of his troops are far more easily replenished. On the other hand, without a hidden village defending his borders, a daimyo has nothing to defend himself against the poisons and daggers of foreign ninja. In the end, a hidden village simply does not have the numbers to directly confront against a daimyo's forces – Konoha, for example, counts less than three thousand ninja among its forces, whereas the Fire Daimyo has, between his own troops and those of his vassals, a standing army forty thousand strong, not counting the reserves he can call upon – and the daimyo needs the ninja's services to keep his position and his head._

_Some might claim that the existence of S-rank ninja, humans capable of annihilating entire armies, nullifies this unspoken accord. They say that the ninja merely suffer the existence of the daimyo, and that no army, no matter how large, can stand up to the might of such an individual. But how many armies can such a human eliminate at once, or in quick succession? One? Ten? Even if the ninja in question is skilled enough and powerful enough that he is capable of wiping out the entire population of a country, there is mental exhaustion to consider as well, not to mention the greedy eyes of the nations across the border waiting for an opportunity to intervene. How long can one man be forced to fight without rest before he collapses? Our position is much the same..._

Excerpt from an editorial published in the Bunbunmaru Newspaper, Volume 139.28

* * *

The fan in the woman's hand snapped open with a twitch of her fingers. It was made of white cloth, Hiruzen noted, faintly tinged red, and embroidered with a delicate pattern of butterflies in flight. And when she waved her hand ever so slightly, the thread shimmered and glowed, as if the images were coming to life, about to fly off the cloth of the fan and flutter away on the breeze. He shuddered and shook his head violently, suddenly distracted from the discussion he'd been having about import taxes and other tariffs.

This was no genjutsu – if it were, the Anbu waiting outside would have long since broken in to defend their Hokage – no, the craftsmanship that went into making that fan was of higher quality than he thought humanly possible. If any of the ladies in the Fire Daimyo's court were to see the fan she held in her hand, no doubt he would soon find himself with a commission to acquire it. That fan was almost certainly worth more than the entire payout from an S-ranked mission. That it was in the hands of someone who was almost certainly a ninja of no small skill was... strange.

It only added to the mystery that he faced in the form of one Yakumo Yukari. Presumably the leader of this delegation, given how all of the paperwork and documents were in her keeping. A woman roughly twenty-five years in age, if his eyes served him correctly, she was hardly one he expected to be leading a village. There was something about her, though, that he could not quite identify, something that made her seem far older than her apparent age. Yes, she, even more so than the others accompanying her, was definitely much, much more than she appeared to be.

Not that any of the other four were easy to read, for that matter. In the few days since the delegation from Kekkaigakure had arrived, Fugaku and Ibiki had jointly prepared four separate intelligence profiles, each of which had almost immediately been rendered obsolete. At times, it seemed as if everything they said or did would force revisions of the profiles, from their apparent lack of elemental jutsu to the strange devices they brought with them as examples of trade goods whose operation could not be explained through any known principle.

Furthermore, the traveling clothes the delegation had been wearing had been of higher quality than he'd ever encountered. It was all pure silk, and of a tighter weave than he had thought possible. The clothes they wore, in any other hands, would have been reserved for the most formal of occasions, if only because of the sheer amount of craftsmanship that must have gone into their construction. But these people treated such clothing as if they were worth no more than the coarse cotton clothes that the poorest farmer in the Fire Country might wear.

Hiruzen winced, suddenly realizing that he'd gotten distracted again, and forcibly turned his thoughts back to the discussion at hand.

The woman sitting across from him smirked at that, and the fan snapped shut again, quickly disappearing into one of the long sleeves of her strange dress. "Perhaps," she suggested, "it would be for the best if we left this topic for now. It seems that we have a general agreement, and we can leave the details for our assistants. Our job, after all, is to decide general matters of policy, not to determine the precise rate at which foodstuffs should be taxed."

And damn it all, she was right. At some point, he'd gotten far too caught up in trying to worm out certain details about Kekkaigakure during their conversations, losing sight of the true aim of he meetings he was having. He'd focused far too much on the little details of the treaties that were being prepared, even as he sat here, and had nearly forgotten about the big picture. As the Hokage, he was supposed to lay down the overall direction of Konoha's foreign policy, rather than debating about the specific numbers for the taxes to be attached to imported goods.

It certainly didn't help that, once it had been decided to tentatively accept Kekkai's offer for peaceful coexistence and to try to work towards a firmer alliance, he had been busy day and night with meetings, both with the people from Kekkaigakure and with the citizens of his own village. The tedium of the endless meetings and debates had a way of making one lose sight of the true reason that there was a delegation from Kekkaigakure in Konoha in the first place. Changing the topic and spending some time in idle banter would, at the very least, serve to help him keep that in mind when he returned to negotiations.

Hiruzen nodded grudgingly, and Yukari smiled, seeming remarkably pleased with herself. "Very well, then," she said. "Konoha, I am sure, is well-known throughout the Elemental Nations. Should I send agents to the Water Daimyo's court, I will no doubt be able to learn a great deal about your village. Such information, after all, has a way of disseminating, no matter what measures are taken to control its spread. However, as Kekkaigakure is almost entirely unknown, you have no similar methods to learn about my home. As a measure of goodwill, then, if there is anything you would like to ask me, I will answer. Within reason, of course."

At first glance, the offer was remarkably naïve. Simply giving away information about oneself could potentially be deadly, no matter how trivial or inconsequential that information might be. The more he thought about it, though, the more it began to make sense in a convoluted fashion. There was no guarantee that Yukari would tell the truth, after all. She might lie to inflate his estimation of Kekkaigakure's strength, thus giving her an advantage at the negotiating table that she might not have otherwise. She might lie to deflate his estimation of Kekkaigakure's strength, making her home seem like less of a threat to Konoha. For that matter, she might even tell the truth, to make him think that she was lying about it, causing...

He shook his head. That sort of circular reasoning was pointless. In the end, if he could acquire information without giving any away, that would be a net gain for Konoha, and as long as he could corroborate that information with other sources, it was a net gain, no matter what. But what to ask about? It was doubtful that she would give him concrete answers if he asked about things such as kekkai genkai or the number of ninja on active duty. On the other hand, asking about something too general would not be particularly useful, either, as such information would be something that he could easily obtain through other sources.

And so, uncertain about what to ask, he decided to resolve the question that had been foremost in his mind since the day that the initial messenger from Kekkaigakure had arrived. "I understand," he said, finally, "that there are certain things that you cannot tell me about your village. If you do not mind, though, there is one single question that I would like to ask of you."

Yukari shrugged. "By all means," she said.

Hiruzen nodded. "Why now?" he asked slowly, trying to find the best way to phrase his inquiry. "I do not know when your village was established, or for what purpose, but I think, at this point, anyone can tell that your home has been isolated from the rest of the world for quite some time. Why choose to wait until now to reveal yourselves to the world?"

Yukari pursed her lips, humming thoughtfully to herself. "My people," she said finally, "are extremely isolated from the outside world. We have been for some time. And indeed, if it had been my choice to make, Kekkaigakure would remain unknown to the word." She breathed out in a long sigh. "But our hand was forced. One of the... custodians, for lack of a better word, of our village, whose duty is to guard our home and keep the peace, discovered an intruder who had stumbled upon our home. And when she investigated, this intruder attacked her without warning."

She grimaced, and the fan materialized again from her sleeve. "He was dealt with, although she was gravely injured in the process, and when we sought to discover the source behind the unprovoked attack, we discovered some strange being wrought entirely from imbalance. There was a fight, and, although we killed him in the end, he very nearly succeeded in escaping and revealing the existence of my home to the world. In one day, two men very nearly managed to destroy what I've worked to protect for my entire life. And what if there were more like them?"

"So you ventured out, knowing that, in the process, you would be breaking the protection of the obscurity that your village has held for so long," Hiruzen said. He had dealt with existential threats to Konoha before – if nothing else, the Kyuubi attack certainly counted – and he could understand at least a little of the echoes of a stark, remembered fear that was reflected in Yukari's voice. "You ventured out," he said, hazarding a guess, "to learn about the world your village had hidden from. To learn how to defend yourselves against an unknown threat, one which might strike again."

Yukari inclined her head towards him. "Just so," she said quietly. "In any case, when we searched the cave that the attacker and his mentor had been living in, in addition to some disturbing things that we destroyed, we discovered a scratched headband bearing a symbol which we now know originates from your village." She looked at him pointedly.

"Missing-nin from Konoha." He tried to ignore the sinking feeling in his stomach. While, most of the time, it was understood that the actions that an exile took had nothing to do with the village where the ninja in question had been trained, it was not unheard of for ninja to be ordered to "go rogue" to perform certain sensitive missions. Associating missing-nin with their village of origin was not an unreasonable thing to do, and such an association could very well taint the rest of the negotiations. And if they should prove to bear hostilities towards his home as a result... No. Best not to think of that for now.

"This does, however, bring up something that I had wished to discuss with you, but never found the opportunity to bring up. We do not hold your village responsible for the actions of your exiles," Yukari continued, as if she knew his concerns. "I would hardly be here talking to you otherwise. I believe, though, that among the hidden villages, the practice in these situations is to inform the home village of the identities of the deceased. However, due to our lack of contact with the rest of the world, we have no means to identify the bodies. Thus, I thought it prudent to take records of them and hand them over to you, instead." From somewhere inside her voluminous sleeves, she produced two pieces of paper and placed them on the table, sliding them towards him. No. Not simple paper. Photographs, and ones of higher quality than he had ever seen, at that.

They were of two corpses, both male, laid out on sterile tables and illuminated with the harsh white light of an autopsy room. He almost wished he hadn't looked. Years of experience had inured him to the sight of most typical battlefield injuries. He'd seen the cuts and deep stabs of kunai, the charred flesh left behind by fire jutsu, the telltale signs of certain unpleasant poisons, even the strange effects of some lesser-known kekkai genkai. These injuries, though, were not something he had ever encountered before.

The cause of death for the first was obvious enough – it was hard to miss the marks of some massive, crushing blow to the ribcage that had caved in the entire chest cavity – but both corpses were strangely deformed, flesh and bone melted and warped almost as if they were wax figurines, exposed too closely to an open flame. Large circular puncture wounds from an unknown weapon liberally dotted both bodies, too large to be from senbon, yet, at the same time, the wrong shape for them to be from shuriken or kunai.

The other corpse was equal halves black and white, almost as if it were some child's toy, molded from clay and frivolously colored. It was, for lack of a word, inhuman. Very few kekkai genkai affected the body to such an extent, and while this particular bloodline did not number among the few that he recognized, those that did were, almost universally, extremely powerful. Perhaps Kekkaigakure would make for a decent ally after all, one that might reasonably be expected to make some contributions to war efforts?

And when Hiruzen's gaze drifted up towards the top of the images, slowly but steadily, he found himself looking into the familiar pitch-black eyes of Konoha's most prominent clan. It was a face of a boy, no, man he had thought long dead. He choked and stumbled back in shock, nearly falling over as he half-rose from his sitting position.

"Uchiha," he breathed, righting himself and discreetly waving off his bodyguards in that same motion. "Obito." A young man he had thought long dead years ago.

"I take it," Yukari said calmly, "that you recognize this man?"

He nodded slowly. "Uchiha Obito is a ninja who has been listed as being killed in action for over a decade. The circumstances of his death were, at the time, fairly straightforward. There was an enemy ambush on a mission that he had taken on, and he was buried alive." He had mourned the loss at the time. One more young life snuffed out was one more child who he had failed to protect from the horrors of war. Minato's team had been devastated when they'd finally returned from that ill-fated mission. To learn now that Obito had somehow managed to survive a living burial, and that he had for some reason decided to defect afterward hinted at something more than what he'd gleaned from watching the interactions between him and the rest of his team.

Yukari looked him in the eyes for a moment, fixing him with an inscrutable gaze. He held his breath until she looked away again, apparently satisfied with what she had seen. In that moment, he felt as if he had just passed some invisible test, and he let out a gasp, slumping a little before catching himself. A strange feeling passed through him then. It was not a sensation that he was familiar with at all, and it was not until after the negotiations were over and the delegation from Kekkaigakure had left that Hiruzen realized what it was.

She frightened him. It was not fear of pain or of death or of any number of mundane things. He was a ninja, after all, with no small amount of experience with the typical results of battlefield situations. No, this was something more primal, something on an almost instinctual level that whispered insidiously within the dark recesses of his mind, telling him that _she_ was the reason why humans feared the night. It reminded him of the things he had heard in the myths and stories his mother had told him when he was a small child, about the dark days of tumult and conflict before the Sage of the Six Paths had taught the fundamental tenets of chakra theory to the rest of the world. They were fantastic tales of strange creatures, evil and benevolent alike, who had walked the land, inspiring awe and terror in those they had met.

But that was silly. Youkai were just myths, right?

* * *

Konoha was not that impressive, not to someone who was intimately familiar with the crowded streets and busy restlessness of metropolitan Tokyo. She'd done her fair share of traveling after the Barrier had gone up, learning as much as she could about the humans that had forced her entire clan to go into hiding and enjoying the heady freedom of the open, unbounded sky while she could. Compared to the hustle and bustle of any modern city, Konohagakure was a small, backwater town. Granted, it was a small, backwater town nearly half as big as Tokyo proper, but without the cars and trains and other vehicles that she'd become accustomed to in her travels, everything seemed so much _slower_ in comparison.

But simply wandering off by herself into the city unaccompanied would raise all sorts of alarms, and so she was stuck touring a city under the watchful eye of their two guides, ostensibly clan heads, and almost certainly both ninja assigned to them as watchers. The two Konoha ninja had taken to mostly ignoring them as they walked around, instead choosing to glare at each other in stony silence, speaking only when they had to, either when she or Byakuren posed a question of some sort, or when they reached some notable landmark. Evidently, the two had some sort of deep-seated personal animosity, one that ran deep enough that the only information that she'd managed to get out of them were their names – Hyuuga Hizashi and Uchiha Fugaku.

Still, it wasn't all bad. Byakuren was decent company, once you got past the endless ramblings about the noble eightfold path and spiritual enlightenment and whatnot. She was also surprisingly knowledgeable about philosophy and political science for someone who'd spent over half a millennium sealed away in Makai, and, even if their minders kept them away from the areas containing sensitive operations, at the very least, walking around on the streets gave her some idea of how Konoha actually was like. She was, after all, officially or not, head of – and, so far, only – member of Kekkaigakure's foreign intelligence division, and so it was up to her to try to compile any and all information that might tell them more about the humans who lived Outside.

There was simply no real alternative to fieldwork, not when it came to acquiring intelligence about foreign lands. While she could simply have done a few high-altitude passes with her camera, that would miss quite a bit of information that could only really be obtained at the street level. There was nothing to be found about the general attitude of the populace in aerial photographs, after all, nothing to let her do more than broadly speculate about the economics of a region, not to mention that an overhead view of the interlocking grid of rectangles that was a city often gave very little information about the function of any single building. So here she was in a foreign city, trying to figure out just where to start in obtaining information on a village that was, for most intents and purposes, a complete unknown. It didn't help that she was restricted to exploring areas that could conceivably house a consulate of some sort.

Still, there was quite a bit that she could learn just by walking around, both about the people and about the world itself. As the few youkai and villagers who'd ventured Outside had attested, Konohagakure relied exclusively on artisans to produce the infrastructure and equipment that it relied upon to maintain its day-to-day operations. Furthermore, despite the apparent existence of ninja techniques that could manipulate the five elements, there had not been any attempts to adapt them to purposes other than war and killing, as evidenced by the lack of electricity and refrigeration facilities. Of course, she was assuming here that what she found here in Konoha would be representative of the other major cities Outside, which might not entirely be the case.

There was more to a village, though, than just technology and living conditions. She had hoped to find out more about Konoha's separate clans on this trip as well – there had been many rumors, but nothing of real substance, and with luck, she would have been able to corroborate some of those rumors with first-hand information. Unfortunately, their guides' reluctance to speak about much of anything, or at all, for that matter, didn't help at all. To be honest, the choice of two ninja who could not even stand each others' presence to act as as the official face of Konoha seemed strange.

Luckily, Byakuren had come to the rescue, asking to be shown around the various shrines and religious landmarks in and around Konoha. After a moment of deliberation, the stiff, straight-laced man who'd introduced himself earlier as Hyuuga Hiashi had left with Byakuren, leaving her here with Uchiha Fugaku, who seemed much happier now that Hiashi was gone.

"So," she asked, once Byakuren disappeared off into the teeming crowds that flooded the streets at this time of day, "where to next?"

Fugaku shrugged. "We've covered essentially everything on the itinerary at this point, and there really isn't anything else notable to see in Konoha. Is there anywhere in particular that you wanted to visit?"

Aya shook her head. "To be honest," she admitted, "I'm more interested in general information than in sightseeing. We know very little of this world's history, and what records we have are fragmented and unreliable. I'd hoped that you ninja could help fill in some of the major holes in our knowledge about the past."

"The Hokage has not permitted me to divulge such information," came the terse reply.

"It's not like I'm asking you to divulge the deep, dark secrets of your clan or your village, Uchiha-san," she said dryly. "All I'm asking you to tell me about is general history – stuff that anyone would know. Surely you can do that, right?"

The man hesitated for a moment, clearly thinking it over. "I suppose I could do that," he said finally. "What exactly would you like to know about?"

"Everything," she said, taking a moment to savor Fugaku's look of evident surprise. "Tell me as much as you can."

He sighed, and then let out a faint smile. "That is a lot of history to cover, and it is getting late in the day. Perhaps it would be best if we discussed this over some food?"

* * *

As head of the Konoha Military Police Force, Uchiha Fugaku was in charge of internal security for the entire city of Konohagakure, with all of the attendant responsibilities and paperwork. As such, when the Hokage had all but ordered him to accompany two members of the diplomatic delegation from Kekkaigakure on a tour of the city, he had, quite understandably, been rather irritated. After all, any amount of time spent gallivanting around in the streets was time he could have used to work on cutting down on the piles of paperwork that permeated every aspect of his job. And while the request had been understandable – as head of the Uchiha clan, he was one of the most influential figures in the village, after all – it hadn't helped that Hyuuga Hiashi had been the _other_ person tasked with handling the delegates.

The longstanding rivalry between their two clans had caused the relationship between the two of them to develop into the kind of personal animosity that could only stem from years and years of repeated disagreements. It had not been the kind of request that he could refuse, however, and so he had ended up stuck with the man. As it was, he hadn't been in the best of moods, and the revelation that he would be working with Hiashi, of all people, did not help improve it at all.

And so, when the time came for him to escort the visitors around Konoha, he had not exactly been in a good mood. At least Hiashi seemed to feel the same way, judging from the occasional sulfurous looks that the Hyuuga patriarch occasionally sent him. No doubt, though, it had not made for a good first impression on their visitors at all.

Thankfully, neither of their charges had seemed to be overly bothered. The black-haired woman with the fan who'd introduced herself as Shameimaru Aya had merely glanced at the two of them, looking incredibly amused, before returning to looking at the city, whereas her companion had simply smiled and begun asking questions, ignoring the obvious hostility. Not long after, she'd requested a tour of some religious sites, taking Hiashi with her and effectively removing the cause of conflict.

Then Aya had made her own strange request, which was how he had ended up here in a tea house in the middle of the Uchiha District. At first, when she'd asked him to tell her about the history of the world, he'd thought it was a joke. After all, who didn't know about the Sage of the Six Paths? Such things were, after all, common knowledge, things that were ingrained in his mind even almost before he was born. But... if Konoha had been isolated from the rest of the world for however long, no doubt he'd want to confirm that his histories were still correct.

Not to mention, this _was_, in fact, an excellent opportunity to attempt to further improve relations with this new village. The Hokage had made it quite clear that he intended to establish a long-term relationship of some kind with Kekkaigakure, and establishing good working relationships with the delegates, people who he'd no doubt have to work with in the future, couldn't hurt.

Besides, it gave him a chance to perform an analysis of his own on his foreign guest. The intelligence profile given him for his mission had been woefully incomplete. There hadn't been anything concrete at all besides the given name, with everything else solely being speculation. It had warned that this Aya might be a skilled Fuuton user, given the fan she seemed to carry on her wherever she went, but that little tidbit of information was not at all near what he'd expected from Jiraiya's vaunted intelligence network.

Still, she didn't exactly carry herself like a ninja, despite the metal plate with the qian trigram that hung at her belt. She looked almost like any other civilian, the way she wandered around seemingly without any care in the world, with none of the tell-tale nervousness of someone deep in potentially hostile territory without any support whatsoever. It made him nervous. The only ninja who acted that unconcerned were either incredibly experienced or incredibly inexperienced, and the uncertainty was worrisome. Unfortunately, there wasn't really much he could do about it – his orders had left very little room for maneuvering. Here, if only because of lack of evidence, he would just have to guess as to the visitors' intentions.

Fortunately, there still were ways to mitigate the risks. He had taken her to a tea house here for a reason. If anything went wrong, the rest of his clan would be at his side in an instant, ready to beat back the intruders. Of course, the higher quality of the food here didn't hurt, and the fact that all his expenses here would be reimbursed by Konoha, since he was on official business, meant that he wouldn't even have to pay for any of it.

"Thank you taking the time to do this," Aya said, as the waitress arrived with the pot of tea and ceramic cups.

"It is my honor." The waitress poured out the tea and left, and he took a moment to savor the aroma. From the smell, it was from the fields east of Degarashi Port, then – some of the finest tea in the Elemental Nations. "The first thing you should know," Fugaku said slowly, "is that recorded history begins with the Sage of the Six Paths. We have no records of the time before then, save folklore and superstition."

"And no efforts have been made to recover this heritage?"

He shrugged. "Who has the money or the manpower to waste on such things?" He shook his head. "In any case, the Sage brought the knowledge of chakra into this world. Legends say that his descendents eventually founded two clans – the Senju and the Uchiha. At first, after the Sage's death, the ninja who followed his teachings split up, forming clans, often choosing to serve the various daimyo as retainers. At the time, these clans often fought between themselves, vying for the limited supply of work that the daimyo could provide. One such rivalry was between the Senju and the Uchiha – it was a longstanding rivalry that was only truly resolved upon the founding of Konoha."

Fugaku paused to sip at his tea. Aya, he noted, had produced a notebook and a pencil, and was busy scribbling down notes like a student in an Academy lecture. "After the founding of Konoha," he continued, "other clans founded their own villages, and still others gradually integrated themselves with existing villages. Since then, the three Shinobi World Wars have cemented the hidden villages' place in the world."

"And what of the Daimyo?" Aya asked. "What role do they play, and how much influence do they have?"

It was strange to be able to speak so openly with someone not in his own family. It took him a while, too, to realize why. Usually, even when he spoke to his fellow ninja in Konoha, there was an undercurrent of hidden tension. The Uchiha were widely feared, even within their own village, and it reflected in his interactions with everyone else. It was possible that no one from Kekkaigakure had yet heard of the reputation that the Uchiha clan had, and perhaps the way his guest saw him would change when she found out, but for now, he was content to be able to have someone to talk with, even if it was only for matters of business.

And perhaps, if Konoha ever decided that it was better off without the segment of its populace that it hated and feared and needed, then he might just have somewhere to turn to. It would be difficult to arrange for, especially because of the secrecy under which such negotiations would need to be conducted, but there was promise here. Promise, and possibility.

* * *

When the delegation from Kekkaigakure finally left, disappearing over the horizon from where he watched, atop the great gates of Konoha, Sarutobi Hiruzen finally let himself relax. The week that the foreigners had been in his village had been an incredibly stressful week – there had been security arrangements to make, meetings to schedule and reschedule, and through it all, there had been the niggling worry that this was somehow a plot to strike at the village he guarded.

Now that they were gone, though, he could finally allow himself some measure of laxness, now that everything he had to do was far less urgent.

In the end, the council had voted to allow traders free access to Konoha with minimal tariffs, and he'd approved, especially after he'd seen some samples of goods and the prices at which they'd be sold. And while a good deal of the goods to be imported were bound for civilian markets, there was a lot more that would no doubt end up in the hands of his ninja.

He didn't know how exactly Kekkaigakure's blacksmiths could produce steel wire of such strength and fineness, but they had done so somehow, and at a price that was, all things told, very, very reasonable. Still, he couldn't help but wonder about it. Most of the time, when Konoha traded with other hidden villages, the goods approved for export were of substantially lower quality than the ones that were withheld for internal use. After all, the more weapons they sold to their potential enemies, the stronger that those enemies would be, and so making sure that his shinobi – and _only_ his shinobi – were equipped with the best of the best was only the sensible thing to do. And if Kekkaigakure held a similar philosophy, and their export products were of such high quality, what did that say about the equipment that _their_ ninja used?

Not to mention that he'd gotten distressingly little information out of his visitors, and, for all of his observations, the only things his Intelligence department had managed to turn up was that Kekkaigakure was obscenely rich, given the delegates' clothing, and some speculation about possible fighting styles. At least he had the satisfaction of knowing that the delegates had not uncovered that much about Konoha either – he had no reason to believe that the visitors had managed to uncover anything that wasn't already fairly public knowledge.

Unfortunately, the visit _had_ brought some unpleasant revelations. He'd have to arrange to send a team to Kekkaigakure to recover the remains of the body of Uchiha Obito – what was left of it, at least. There was also the issue of how to break the news to Kakashi. The man would be devastated when he found out that the friend he thought long dead had somehow remained alive – and had gone rogue, no less – but, at the same time, he couldn't exactly withhold the information, seeing as how Kakashi would no doubt find out one way or another.

He sighed. He really was getting too old for this.

* * *

It was not difficult to track the boy she had given her ribbon to, despite the teeming mass of humanity that filled the city. All she had to do was follow the faint traces of her own presence that yet lingered on the ribbon of hers that she'd given him, despite the time and her own best efforts. And so it was that Kagiyama Hina found herself wandering through the bustling street markets in the lower-class neighborhoods that filled Konoha's southern half.

The last time she'd visited the city, she had thought that the boy she'd met was an orphan. The maze of mid-rise buildings that she slowly spent her time navigating through, however, was nowhere near any of Konoha's public orphanages. Naruto lived here, though, or somewhere near, judging from her rough sense of direction and proximity. This was no place for a child to live on his own – even if he'd somehow managed to secure a decent place to live,young humans, in her experience, were entirely incapable of caring for themselves, quite unlike youkai. She'd seen enough human children lost on the Nameless Hill to recognize that much, at least.

As she walked around aimlessly, the occasional vendor called out to her, advertising everything from trinkets to weaponry to fresh vegetables. From time to time, she stopped to peruse some of the wares, indulging herself in the ability to simply walk around without being shunned. And all the while, she followed that ever-so-faint trail, slowly drifting closer and closer to her intended destination.

It was not until late afternoon that she finally discovered the apartment building that Naruto lived in. Strangely enough, even though nearly everyone she had spoken with knew of Naruto's reputation as a troublemaker and nuisance, no one knew where he actually lived. Finding his home had proven to be surprisingly difficult, especially considering just how well-known he apparently was within Konoha. The squat concrete building was dingy and ill-kept – hardly surprising, given its location in the middle of one of Konoha's poorer neighborhoods. A poorly-lit staircase spiraled up one side, providing access to the various apartments, and a battered nameplate labeled "Uzumaki" marked an apartment on the second floor as Naruto's.

For a moment, she paused in front of the door, listening to the sounds that drifted in from the streets. The shrill cries of farmers hawking their wares punctuated the low rumble of conversation and foot traffic down in the street below. No, this was hardly a good place to live. Judging from the noise, this was a fairly well-trafficked area, and, given the various bars she'd passed on her way here, it would be quite noisy at night. It was strange that a child would be living on his own, and in such poor conditions, no less. Perhaps Naruto could enlighten her as to why?

Hina reached out to knock on the door and stopped, hesitating, her hand hovering in mid-air. This was the first time in recent memory that she'd visited anyone, really. The few times that she'd had company, it had always because Nitori had decided to seek her out for some reason or another, usually bringing some sort of machinery with her, saying something about "stress testing" and "redundant systems," whatever that meant. As a result, she was not entirely familiar with the relevant social niceties regarding visiting others.

If she was correct, it was customary to bring gifts when visiting others, and although she'd initially been unsure about what to take with her, she'd eventually settled on a set of glazed porcelain bowls – something an orphan would not likely have, due to expense, especially in the pre-industrial society Outside – as well as a copy of _Taketori Monogatari_, which, admittedly, she'd included more out of whimsy than anything else.

Yes, the reassuring weight of the gifts in the basket slung under her arm was still there. Everything was in order. Hina took a deep breath and reached out to knock once again. Her hand stopped just before it hit the door's surface. Did the boy still even remember her? She'd only ever met him once, and even then for just a few hours, the last time she'd been in Konoha. That was six months ago, and she knew all too well that human memory was ever so fickle, whether for good or for worse. To her, six months was merely another fleeting instant in the middle of a long life. To a young human boy, six months could very well be an eternity. That the ribbon had led her to his home, rather than to the sewers or some sort of junk heap, was promising, but for all she knew, it could be buried under a pile of clutter, long forgotten by the rest of the world.

Well, there wasn't much point in worrying about such things. The sound of her knocking echoed through the hallway. For a long moment, she waited impatiently, listening for any response. There was nothing to indicate that her presence had been noticed, no response at all from inside the apartment. She sighed. Maybe she had been forgotten after all. Honestly, it would be for the best if she were – the sheer difference in lifespan meant that any youkai who sought out humans as friends or companions often ended up heartbroken.

And then, suddenly, the door burst open, revealing one familiar blond-haired young boy. "...Naruto-kun?" she said dumbly.

"Hina-nee!" came the shout. She blinked. When had she become "Hina-nee"? She distinctly remembered Naruto calling her "Hina-san" the last time she'd been in Konoha. Evidently, sometime during her absence, that had changed. Naruto leaped at her in some sort of cross between a hug and a flying tackle, hitting her square in the chest. She stumbled back a few steps from the force. "Hina-nee!" he shouted again. "You really came back to visit!"

"Of course I did," she said quietly. "I promised, didn't I?" She winced a bit as Naruto hugged her to himself even more tightly than he had before. For a young human, the boy was abnormally strong.

"My classmates at the Academy said the ribbon you gave me was stupid and girly," he said, waving his hand around as if to showcase that fact that he was still wearing the same tattered ribbon that she'd given him all those months before, "and when I said you gave it to me they just laughed..." He sniffled a bit. "They said you probably forgot about me as soon as you left and that..." Naruto trailed off.

"It's all right," she said, patting the back of his head. "I'm here now, and I've brought some gifts for you with me as well. Come on, let's go inside. Do you have a caretaker of some sort?"

Naruto let go of her at that, blushing a bit. "Um," he said. "I live alone." He seemed to wilt under her disapproving glare. "It's fine," he said quickly. "I didn't like living at the orphanage and I don't bother anyone living here and Hokage ojii-san makes sure that I have enough money for food and-" Naruto squawked as Hina stepped around him and peered through the open door into his apartment. She was not surprised to find the interior a complete mess.

The flimsy cardboard boxes that food stands used for takeout covered every table within the entire apartment. Discarded clothing lay strewn across the floor, and the occasional book, printed on the thin, flimsy paper that was ubiquitous throughout the Elemental Nations, and bound by string, sat on the ground, evidently having been left open to some page or another before being abandoned. Hina took a deep breath. Beyond the expected smells of old food and dirtied clothes, there was something else, a scent of something that hinted at rage and despair and barely-contained violence.

She turned and glanced down at the boy behind her. He was blushing a bit, staring down at his feet and studiously ignoring her gaze. "I didn't realize anyone would be visiting," he mumbled, by way of explanation.

"Don't worry about it," she said. "I can help you clean, if you'd like."

Naruto shook his head vigorously. "No," he insisted. "I'll do it." She helped anyway, setting her basket down after clearing off a table, and carrying piles of empty paper containers down to the dumpster by the street. By the time everything was finished, Naruto looked a bit guilty. "Sorry," he said quietly, as they sat down at the table, across from each other.

"Don't worry about it," Hina said. "I don't mind. Just try to keep it clean by yourself from now on, okay?" She smiled, and he nodded. "I have some gifts here," she continued. "It's customary to do so, isn't it?"

The boy looked from her to the basket, and then down to the floor. "I think so," he mumbled, "but I don't really visit anyone, so..."

"Here, then." She set down the bowls on the table with a soft clink. They were a deep, vibrant scarlet, decorated with smaller copies of the large green spiral that adorned the front of her dress. "These are for you to use," she said. "I don't know how much you actually make for yourself, but at the very least, you should be able to use them as containers, for leftovers, I think."

"They're really pretty," Naruto said happily. "I promise I'll treat them well." He stood, picking them up off the low table, and headed over to the kitchen area. While he put the bowls away, Hina set the basket on the ground, and pulled out the copy of _Taketori Monogatari_. The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter. Houraisan Kaguya had had a print run commissioned a few weeks ago for some reason or another, and, while the teacher in the village had bought most of the excess to use as schoolbooks, she'd managed to secure a copy.

It was beautiful – hardcover, and printed on glossy paper with full-page illustrations, it looked much, much different from the typical scrolls and books that she'd seen in Konoha. Judging from his reaction when he saw it, Naruto thought so too. For a moment, he stood there, dumbfounded, before hesitantly reaching out to touch it.

"Can I read it?" he asked. He looked fearful, as if he were worried for some reason that she would not let him look.

Hima smiled. "It's for you." She laid it on the table face-up and slid it over towards him.

"Are you sure?" he asked, sounding unsure. Hina nodded, and he slowly traced a finger across the cover. "Take- Taketori," he muttered, stumbling across the unfamiliar words, "Monogatari."

"It's the tale of the bamboo cutter," she said. "It's quite the beloved story where I'm from. Would you like me to read it to you?"

Naruto nodded.

As she told the story of the old bamboo cutter and the beautiful moon princess and her many suitors, Naruto sat there, entranced, occasionally stretching his hand out to lay his fingers on one of the full-page illustrations that accompanied the text. Honestly, it made her kind of sad to see such a young child so content with just having someone read him a story.

Naruto looked at her shyly when she was done. "Hey, Hina-nee?" he asked, clutching the book to his chest. "How long are you staying this time?"

"I'm leaving tomorrow morning," she said, looking out of a window. The sun was dipping towards the horizon, and in another hour or two, it would be completely dark out. "I should go," she continued. "I need to find a place to stay for the night."

"Can't you stay a bit longer?" he pleaded. "You could stay here and-"

"I have business to take care of," Hina said sadly, softly ruffling a hand through his hair, "and I..." She sighed. "I really shouldn't stay." Hina stood and turned to leave. "Don't worry," she said as she stepped outside, "I'll be back sooner than you realize."

"You won't forget about me, right, Hina-nee?" Naruto asked. He ran out towards where she stood, and Hina obligingly knelt down and enveloped him in a hug. "You won't lose all of your com-pas-sion for me like the princess in the story?"

"Ah." She giggled a bit. "No, I think I can safely say that I'm not at all like that Kaguya." She sighed, and, with a twist of her hand, gathered up all of the boy's misfortune and let it suffuse through her being. "I have to leave now," she said quietly, before standing back up and letting go. She waved as she left. "Good luck until we next meet!"

Really, that boy was all too attached to her. She should have been a complete stranger to him, not a cherished member of his family. It didn't sit well with her. But now that there were official relations between Gensokyo and Konohagakure, perhaps there was something she could do about it, after all. While she had no desire to live Outside, perhaps it might be possible to arrange for Naruto to be brought to the Human Village? It was something worth consideration, at any rate, though. She would have to discuss it with the schoolteacher when she returned, then. And if not, then she would just have to visit more often, especially now that the need for secrecy was far less urgent, and she did have errands to take care of here... It felt nice, Hina decided, to know that somewhere, someone needed her.

And far above her, on the rooftops, a shadowy watcher made note of all that had transpired, and vanished.


End file.
